Then you said: There isn't? But your sentence assumes that I understand what you mean by the word, "cat," a term which refers in essence to "a small carnivorous mammal (Felis catus or F. domesticus) domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet and existing in several distinctive breeds and varieties." Definition implies logical species or nature or essence.
If you meant by "essence" nothing more than, "those characteristics that differentiate a cat from other animals," the word essence would be fine. You and Aristotle and Aquinas all regard "essence" as more than an abstract concept. You regard essence as some kind of metaphysical reality. Essence has meaning only epistemologically. To make it more than that is exactly what LogicWings meant, it is reification.
Hank
A what? What is this reification you keep referring to by the letters, C-A-T?
Get it?
SubstanceThe Scholastics, who accepted Aristotle's definition, also distinguished primary substance (substantia prima) from secondary substance (substantia secunda): the former is the individual thing -- substance properly so called; the latter designates the universal essence or nature as contained in genus and species.